We always think of jealousy, anger, fear, guilt as negative emotions. In fact there are tables and posts dedicated to what are negative emotions and how you can control them. And yet these emotions are essential to our well-being. An e-course that I’m taking right now called ‘the science of happiness’ also called them negative emotions.
So, today I’m going to make a case that we should stop classifying them as negative or positive emotions and call them just emotions. What we should do instead is track the expression of an emotion which can then be mapped on a spectrum of healthy and unhealthy. Because both anger (negative) and empathy (positive) can have healthy and unhealthy expressions.
For example, I was on a call with my friends when our conversation turned to how women tend to be more perfectionists than men. I have been known to declare quite proudly that I’m a perfectionist. But I read a tweet recently that blew my mind. It said: perfectionists are basically insecure people.
I told this to my friends and while I was talking to them, I had an epiphany. We have made striving to be a perfectionist a good thing which is why we’re always running after it. But as soon as you understand it’s toxic, you stop, think about what you’re doing and realize you don’t need to be a perfectionist to be productive. You can have a range to define productivity which is a better way of working.
While attention to detail is a good thing [healthy], taking it too far [perfectionism – unhealthy] can be a bad thing.
In a meeting of the Creative Soul Club, we were discussing the movie Inside Out and the themes it explored, and during that discussion, two words were uttered that blew my mind [again]: toxic positivity.
A lot has been said about the difference between toxic positivity and empathy in the context of the pandemic, but the two words made me think of the scenes in the movie where the parents constantly call their daughter their ‘happy girl’ and give her no room to express her sadness at the shift of cities, loss of identity, loss of friendship, etc. There is a scene towards the end where she’s in tears and she says to her parents that I can be happy but sometimes I need to be sad too. It made me think how the parents’ expectations that Riley be happy all the time was actually a burden on her wellbeing.
But since being happy is a positive emotion, it cannot be negative, right?
All emotions are essential
Anger can help you demand better opportunities. It can give you the push you need to escalate a matter to your manager because the process is not working for you.
Pride is an essential element of self-worth.
Fear can teach you to be cautious, to be better prepared, to find data that can help you make a better choice for yourself.
Positivity helps you make the best of a situation.
Jealousy helps you to broaden your understanding of what makes you tick.
Empathy connects you to the world beyond you – makes you a part of society.
If any of the above emotions go to an extreme, they can become unhealthy, even the “positive” ones.
Why change vocabulary
Words like positive and negative can be quite polarizing. They don’t leave room for negotiations.
Putting their expression on a spectrum of healthy and unhealthy opens up the possibility of defining a range for yourself. For example, I know my empathy is going to become a problem as soon as I find myself incapable of living of my life because I’m too sad with the state of affairs of the world. I know that my anger is a problem when I feel my head will explode like a watermelon being shot.
So, petition to redefine positive and negative emotions as just emotions?
This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter and Blogchatter Half Marathon.
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